Thread: Own farm.

So I have been thinking that it would be cool to buy our own farms and crafting facilities at homesteads.
So what do you guys think about this and why hasn't it been done yet?

Originally Posted by Kyllikki123

So I have been thinking that it would be cool to buy our own farms and crafting facilities at homesteads.
So what do you guys think about this and why hasn't it been done yet?

I actually support this idea. A really nice idea for your first post! I've always wanted to just chill at my house while crafting while listening to my house's epic musics rather than being in the middle of hairy sweaty hobbits in Michel Delvin. So, a thumbs up to you sir! Really hope this'd make it into the game.

Already been suggested, for example in here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?466464-Make-Forges-Workbenches-ect.-household-decs&highlight=

The idea is great but with the current system it's not possible to implement something like that.

I know that Turbine is looking on how to improve housing instance but the update is not going to come soon. I would say probably end of next year or even in 2 years we could get new housing instance.

Great idea, but it's been suggested dozens of times over the years (you may want to check out the Housing forum section for that and similar suggestions) and Turbine has indicated that housing is not a priority for improvement anytime soon, sadly. But maybe someday they will listen to all the players who would gladly spend oodles of TP on housing upgrades.

Yeah, it is sad, out of many upgrades this kind is no-brainer, one of the easiest to inegrate with Store. I mean how hard it is to simply put them all a'la carte and add price tags?

Now let's compare that to eg. Kinship revamp thread: mixed kinships because some people didn't buy new feature. Free for all? No way in hell. Only kinship leaders need them? Low sales. Break it into pieces? How? :S

Let's get back to Housing updates - so simple in comparison. But... we are getting neither.

Turbine is centering the store around grinding activities and cosmetics: LIs, deeds, cosmetic armors, and cosmetic horses.

With RoR coming out, the store will expand around War-steed grinding.

Without a real-money incentive (TP cost), Turbine will not invest a significant amount of time/resources into something the players want, espcially when they're trying to brainstorm new ways to take advantage of the LI grind and, soon, the War-steed grind (which is going to increase the LI grind with a third, equippable LI).

For what it's worth, I like this idea. Not original, but like the Kinship Revamp Proposal, it'd be something to make the game more fun.

Per most reports, Turbine has said that they feel that putting crafting facilities in the houses would make the main hubs seem even more deserted. Thus, this suggestion will never be implemented.

Originally Posted by jewahe

Per most reports, Turbine has said that they feel that putting crafting facilities in the houses would make the main hubs seem even more deserted. Thus, this suggestion will never be implemented.

Which is an idiot statement (Turbine's not yours), since the main Hubs will still have a significant population of players who are not there for the crafting, but there would also be a thriving community in the housing areas which are dead at present! If farming and crafting were to be included in the housing areas, it would make crafting more of a social activity in keeping with the housing communities. At the moment these communities are dead and only fit for personal vaults where we store stuff.

For an example of how stupid Turbine is on this issue, we get a discount if we buy from the homestead supplier, but cannot use the stuff he sells there. We then have to transport what we buy from him to a major hub to use crafting/farming areas, but they don't even put a stable at the housing area to use for travel! So effectively we have housing communities/social areas, where we cannot be social, craft suppliers where we cannot craft and a need for transport where there are no stables.

Well organised and thought out wasn't it? So typically Turbine!

I support the motion, in fact Dark Age of Camelot has these options. Even a supplier for all crafting mats is implemented.

And speaking of deserted main hubs, the constant lag and tearing of performance isn't very attractive. I'd rather craft at my home which serves as a house vault placeholder.

Maybe the option is to be able to convert an improved house, or kin house.
Or introduce a complete new house form.

Most games I've played that have a housing system also have home crafting facilities available, either through crafting them or purchasing them. The housing system in lotro seems completely useless as far as I'm concerned, I barely use it for storage as it's a hassle to use the travelling rations to get there and then a milestone to get back and if I forget something I have an hour to wait or an hour of horse travel. The houses look good but you need to have a reason to visit them besides storage or it's just not worth it. My suggestion: Implement crafting utilities for the housing or get rid of housing.

Originally Posted by Vardath

The housing system in lotro seems completely useless as far as I'm concerned,

very true

Actually I have found 1 useful thing from housing.
Bought house on Thorins homesteads near gate as extra traveling point for characters who don't have quick travel.
So if I need superior forge or workbench, I don't have travel god knows where, for crafting few items.
And obviously hunter is farmer and cook because Delvig quick travel, also campfire skill comes handy when you are cooking.

But yes, personal house should be more than just something with lousy decoration options. It should have full crafting support.
Current housing system is been around for 5 years and it is so outdated.

Originally Posted by podgie_bear

Which is an idiot statement (Turbine's not yours), since the main Hubs will still have a significant population of players who are not there for the crafting, but there would also be a thriving community in the housing areas which are dead at present!

Turbine wants characters in the public areas because potential customers have "Number of Avatars spotted in public areas as a buying requirement". Potential customers want a active player community. They are not going to play Lotro if nobody plays Lotro.

Your Avatar is hidden in a house crafting. You are not playing the game. You are not being counted by the "Potential Customer". Turbine had terrible problems in their first game - Asheron's Call. There was never any reason be in a town. A "Potential Customer" would log in. They could play for hours and never see another Avatar. They might hear a few voics on the global chat channels. Most of the folks chatted in group or kinship chat. The chat channels tended to be really quiet.

Turbine stated that they may add new features that do not currently exist in the game as a housing specific feature. Turbine said they were not going to offer alternatives to many existing features in housing. At least we have vault, shared storage, wardrobe access; discounted vendor goods and some skirmish NPC support.

Avatars spend a lot of time crafting. I do not believe will ever implement crafting facilities in housing. I doubt we will see Auction Halls. Other interesting NPCs like Forge Masters, Barter Vendors, Crafting Guild NPCs ...

Seeing Avatars is the reason behind the swift travel and landscape stable routes. In AC, everybody was a teleporter. Not only that you could open a portal route for five minutes with your character. Anybody could use the portal. Many towns the only Avatars you would see would be Portal Bots. Characters that had a script running on them. You could buy Portal Services. You or your group wanted to get to a place that people often go to. You got to the Portal Bot. How much to open a Portal to Tusker Island? Here you got. Open Tusker Island.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

Turbine wants characters in the public areas because potential customers have "Number of Avatars spotted in public areas as a buying requirement". Potential customers want a active player community. They are not going to play Lotro if nobody plays Lotro.

Your Avatar is hidden in a house crafting. You are not playing the game. You are not being counted by the "Potential Customer". Turbine had terrible problems in their first game - Asheron's Call. There was never any reason be in a town. A "Potential Customer" would log in. They could play for hours and never see another Avatar. They might hear a few voics on the global chat channels. Most of the folks chatted in group or kinship chat. The chat channels tended to be really quiet.

Turbine stated that they may add new features that do not currently exist in the game as a housing specific feature. Turbine said they were not going to offer alternatives to many existing features in housing. At least we have vault, shared storage, wardrobe access; discounted vendor goods and some skirmish NPC support.

Avatars spend a lot of time crafting. I do not believe will ever implement crafting facilities in housing. I doubt we will see Auction Halls. Other interesting NPCs like Forge Masters, Barter Vendors, Crafting Guild NPCs ...

Seeing Avatars is the reason behind the swift travel and landscape stable routes. In AC, everybody was a teleporter. Not only that you could open a portal route for five minutes with your character. Anybody could use the portal. Many towns the only Avatars you would see would be Portal Bots. Characters that had a script running on them. You could buy Portal Services. You or your group wanted to get to a place that people often go to. You got to the Portal Bot. How much to open a Portal to Tusker Island? Here you got. Open Tusker Island.

Well this may be too obvious for Turbine, but did they ever consider having a crafting area just outside the gate of the housing areas for all residents to use instead of miles away? Or putting a stable just outside so we can travel back and forth to the crafting hubs easily? Is that too much like common sense for them to understand?

Originally Posted by podgie_bear

Well this may be too obvious for Turbine, but did they ever consider having a crafting area just outside the gate of the housing areas for all residents to use instead of miles away? Or putting a stable just outside so we can travel back and forth to the crafting hubs easily? Is that too much like common sense for them to understand?

Actually, there was an attempt made to add travel to/from the housing areas at one time...the stable is present, it's just not manned (or horsed), and there is a route **to** the housing area (you just can't go back). As I understand it, the project was abandoned for some reason.

Regarding the "must have people in hubs" argument, if crafting facilities in a house/yard were sold for TP, there would still be quite a few folks who would choose not to spend their money/points on that type of feature and use the hub facilities instead, or who would choose to purchase access to one or two types crafting facilities but not all of them. There are lots of folks who enjoy the social aspect of the crowded crafting halls and would prefer to use them for that reason, not to mention the convenience aspect--if I were in Moria, I'd probably do some of my crafting in the 21st Hall anyway, simply because I'm there using the relic-master or AH or farming mats nearby. I'd use homestead crafting for a lazy weekend morning when I'm not doing much anyway other than hanging out at my house admiring the view and chatting with friends. I don't generally spend any time in major hubs anyway if I can avoid it and seek the least populated crafting facilities like Forochel whenever possible.

I still don't think this will ever happen, but I would gladly spend my money on it if it ever did.

**And yes, we REALLY need real two-way stablemasters at the homestead entrances!!!!

Homestead crafting would mean all your crafting alts could just house-port and have access to a full suite of Superior facilities.

That circumvents your crafting-alts using hubs, and it circumvents certain low-level crafting alts having to find their way to Esteldin/Rivendell or repping up with Mathom Society.

And its just further quantifying the crafting process and turning it into a Progress Quest-like, purely numerical grind. The game, ultimately, is just a big spreadsheet of numbers, after all - the only thing that makes it fun is the "skin" of lore and graphics that's wrapped around it. Putting crafting in the homesteads (which themselves are effectively just houses floating in the ether, practically unconnected to the game world) because its easier and more convenient only serves to make places like 21st Hall seem less "real", reduced to their numerical values and what they can and cant do.

It breaks immersion by allowing you to not immerse yourself. And that prevents other players from immersing themselves as much, because any MMO needs other players around to seem like an actual living world and not just Crono Trigger: Middle Earth...

Originally Posted by podgie_bear

Which is an idiot statement (Turbine's not yours), since the main Hubs will still have a significant population of players who are not there for the crafting, but there would also be a thriving community in the housing areas which are dead at present!

Sorry, but they were pretty much "dead" right from the start, and they always will be. The problem is that there are far too few people in each one, the houses are too spread out within each one, and there are many hundreds of them per server (over 1000 in some cases).

Giving people reasons to leave the relative handful of social centers the game has and spending time out at many hundreds of neighborhoods with many thousands of houses just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. On average, even if your neighborhood were full of active players, the chances you'll even see someone else in a given week are low. In fact, you could easily go a month or more without seeing anyone else - I did, even when houses were relatively new and exciting. If the tie ratio for this game is 10%, typical for mature MMOs, that means maybe 2-3 of your neighbors will be logged in when you are, less if you play at off-peak hours. Of those 2-3, how many will be in your neighborhood when you are? How many will be outside and in your sight lines? It'll be uncommon.

Turbine cannot want for lots of people to be spending lots of time in neighborhoods and houses for a 2nd reason: server loading. Each of those is an instance, and if hundreds of them were all active at once, it would almost certainly increase server loading (and lag).

Khafar